The Coat Hanger

Ephesians 5:21 “Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ.”

The apostle Paul gives this simple encouragement to the church. It seems simple, but it reflects how submission to Christ changes our relationships. When we learn how to rever Christ, by submitting our lives to Him in humility and obedience, we find that we are able to surrender our lives in love to others.

This goes a very long way in illustrating how Christ intends his married couples to behave. Paul follows in Eph. 5:22 by telling wives to submit to their husbands as to the Lord. Her submission to her husband is prefigured or modeled in her submission to Christ her Lord. In the same way Paul urges the man in Eph. 5: 25 to “love your wives as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her.” Husbands are to follow the self-sacrificing love that Jesus showed the church by giving His life as a ransom in order that we might be saved. Christ shed His blood on the cross to “present the church to Himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless.” Christ’s self-emptying love rings about a transformation by those He loved. In the same way husbands and wives are called to love each other like Jesus loves each one through a self-emptying love.

I always use the coat hanger as a symbol of the Christian covenant of marriage. Most of my couples have never thought of their relationship in this way. Refer to the picture above. Most often we think of marriage as a 50/50 proposition. He throws in his half with hers and the two make a go of it. Some poor folks actually agree that “if it doesn’t work out, we can always get a divorce.” Is it any wonder with such an approach to the marriage covenant that 50% of our marriages in America end in divorce?

We are so trained to think as liberated individuals that we fail to see that marriage is a relationship started by God’s action and held together by God’s grace. Every covenant is initiated by God’s invitation. God invited humans to “be fruitful and multiply, to fill the earth and subdue it.” God invited Abram to follow Him to Canaan and God would make Abram the father of many nations and bless him and those who bless Abram. God invited Moses and the Israelites to join Him into a holy community by following His holy law, summarized in the 10 commandments. In the same way God brings together a man and woman and invites them into a covenant where the two will become one flesh.

As such a husband must acknowledge the author of his marriage, namely His creator. The more he pursues a vital faith, the stronger he will be as a husband to his wife. And a woman likewise must love the Lord and grow in her devotion to Christ. The stronger her relationship with Christ, the stronger she will be in her marriage to her husband. The success of the Christian marriage is dependent upon Christ’s grace at work in the husband and wife.

We know Christ as the good shepherd who lays down his life for the sheep. We know from Psalm 23 that the Lord our shepherd leads us to refreshment, righteousness, walks with us through the dark valleys of our life journey and brings us to a place of security where we can affirm that good and mercy follow us always and we will dwell in the house of the Lord forever. The hook on the coat hanger reminds us of this Shepherd God. The triangular shape of the coat hanger reminds us of the correlation between our submission to Christ and the strength of our marriage.

Discuss together how you feel about the coat hanger as a symbol for marriage. Share with one another one or two areas in your relationship with Christ where you think you need to grow. Ask your spouse to share with you an area he or she would like to see you grow as a spouse.